Siri

Siri is a virtual assistant with a voice-controlled natural language interface that uses sequential inference and contextual awareness to help perform personal tasks for iOS users. Spun out of the DARPA-funded CALO project, Siri was initially developed by Dag Kittlaus and his team of SRI International as an iPhone app. Apple bought Siri in 2010. In October of 2011 Apple re-released it as part of iOS 5. Siri is currently run by Bill Stasior, vice president, Siri, and the technology is integrated into the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and into Apple's new HomeKit home automation framework.

Siri was re-introduced with a new interface as part of iOS 5. Although it no longer enjoyed the same level of partner integration it had as an independent app, Apple's Siri better integration with built-in services like iMessage, Mail, Calendars, Reminders, Notes, Stocks, Weather, Music, Safari, and a few external services like Google and Wolfram Alpha. It could also tie into Find my Friends.

With iOS 6 Siri made compatible with the iPad, and gained the ability to provide information about sports, movies, and restaurants, as well the ability to open apps, post Facebook or Twitter updates, and hook into Apple's new Maps app for turn-by-turn navigation.

With iOS 7 Siri got a facelift to match the new design language, new, higher-quality voices, access to Settings and Voice Mail, the ability to display tweets from Twitter, tie ins to Wikipedia and Bing,

iOS 7.1 brought Siri integration with the new CarPlay feature. Siri also gained higher quality voices for Mandarin Chinese, U.K. English, Australian English, and Japanese, and a new push-to-talk feature to better control when Siri starts listening, and when it stops.

In iOS 8 Siri is gaining the ability to listen for the "Hey, Siri" command while plugged in. This is meant to help people while driving, while in bed, while cooking in the kitchen, or while likewise too far away or occupied to use the Home button for activation.

Siri is also being integrated into Apple's HomeKit framework so it can be used to control home automation. For example, saying "Good night Siri!" could make sure your garage is locked, lights and TVs are off, and temperature is reduced.

While Siri itself is integrated into the iOS Springboard system, the Siri team is still run quasi-independantly at Apple. Arguably modularizing Siri and integrating the team could allow for a broader scope of services over time. Apple has not yet released Siri for OS X on the Mac, nor have they provided an application programming interface (API) for developers to hook into. (Though it's unclear how that might affect partnership deals, and how collisions could be handled.)

Also, unlike Google Now, Apple hasn't yet put Siri on-board iOS devices, meaning even local tasks like setting alarms have to go out to the internet, allowing the network to affect performance. Likewise, Apple has thus far refrained from adding prescience to Siri, which would allow it to provide information before being asked.

All Siri

Noted Jailbreak developer chpwn has posted a statement on the state of the iPhone 4 and iPod touch Siri port and further explained why it's not currently being distributed.
Many people have managed to display the Siri UI on the iPhone 4; it is, in fact, reasonably trivial with access to the...

Apple has released 3 more iPhone 4S commercials, a second on Siri along with one focusing on the new 8mp, 1080p camera, and one on iCloud.
iCloud highlights automatic iTunes Music downloads across devices, Documents in the Cloud propagating updates, iBooks bookmarks copying themselves from...

Siri has now been fully hacked onto an iPhone 4 and iPod touch and it now communicates with Apple’s servers to provide a 100% working solution. We told you a few weeks back that developer Steve Troughton-Smith was working on hacking Siri onto an iPhone 4 but had run into one or two hurdles. Well...

Maybe you've already mastered the basic Siri commands, read our tips on setting up relationships and improving pronunciation, and even joked around a bit and are itching to try out something a little more ninja? Well look no further! You've shared with us your favorite secret Siri commands and...

The inimitable Steven Sande and extraordinary Erica Sadun of TUAW fame have put together an Amazon Kindle book designed to help us help Siri help us.
This short, focused book teaches you how to use Siri from the ground up. You'll learn how to achieve the the highest recognition rate as you...

Nick Bilton of The New York Times has some quasi-informed, semi-speculative guesses concerning Apple and a potentially Siri powered television set in the future.
Several people, all speaking on condition of anonymity for obvious reasons, told me that nothing was actively being built, but —...

Georgia and Rene talk about Siri, and about human communication -- why it's important, what challenges we face, and how to become better at it. This is ZENandTECH!
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Why is communication important?
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Brand new to iPhone 4S, heard all about Siri, but wondering how to get started? No problem! Here are the basic things that Siri can do for you, and the example commands to get Siri to do them. Everything has a learning curve and even Apples magical voice activated assistant needs to be spoken to...

The IRIS 9000 is a little box with a built-in microphone that sits next to your iPhone 4S and lets you use Siri from across the room, HAL style.
Simply place your iPhone into the Iris 9000 cradle and use the included micro remote to trigger Siri up to 50 feet away. Just tap the Iris 9000...

According to a report from All Things D, Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus has now left Apple. Apple launched Siri with the iPhone 4S earlier this month after buying the company back in April 2010.
There were several reasons for the departure, which was amicable and has been planned for a while,...

Not content with any of the existing Siri parodies on the web, TiPb contributor George Lim and the guys from TEChBrits decided to have some fun of their own. It's a shot-for-shot remake of Apple's own intro video, only... with not so happy results. For them.
Enjoy.
Source: YouTube

CNN's Brandon Griggs wrote a column speculating as to why most computer generated voices, including Apple's Siri, are made to sound female.
Research suggests this preference starts as early as the womb, Nass said. He cites a study in which fetuses were found to react to the sound of their...

The folks over at Red Pepper Land came up with an ingenious way to get Siri to pour you a cold glass of beer, completely hands free, using Twitter, an Arduino controller and an R/C toy car. They call it Beeri, and I want it..
When Beeri sees a new Tweet containing the word “pour” she...

Apple has aired their first iPhone 4S commercial and it's all about Siri, their new artificially intelligent voice control system. In the commercial, Siri is told:
"We have a flat tire."
"How do I tie a bow tie again?"
"What's the fastest way to Hartford Hospital?"
"Do I need an umbrella in...

Wondering how to get Siri to better understand and pronounce your contact's names? Sometimes adding phonetic spelling will solve the problem. A good example of this is my name. Siri is pronouncing it as A-lie, as in the cake is a lie. Here's how to set up a phonetic spelling to a name.
You'll...

Thanks to the quick Camera access and power of Siri as a virtual assistant, iOS 5 and iPhone 4S are more convenient than ever -- but they also leave you open to everything from pranks to data theft. We've talked about this extensively on the iPhone Live podcast but it's worth repeating here....

Jonathan Mann has put together a duet with none other than iPhone 4S assistant Siri. Jonathan is a musician and songwriter who is currently writing one song a day and has been doing it for over 1000 days.
This song is all about Siri, in fact it is a full on duet, with Siri taking its part in...